


The Clytemnestra

by Polkat (aralias)



Category: The Oresteia - Aeschylus
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, April Showers 2015, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-04-23
Updated: 2003-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-20 23:25:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3669066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aralias/pseuds/Polkat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>THE AGAMEMNON: a tragic tale where the brave war lord is brutally murdered by his evil wife. That was his story. This is hers. UNFINISHED</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Helen

**Author's Note:**

> Uploading old fic for April Showers 2015. All spelling/grammar errors left as originally posted.

"Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?"

A pair of almond shaped liquid brown eyes stared back at her in the mirror.  _Helen's eyes_ , Clytemnestra thought and scowled at her sister's eyes in her face. The scowl caused little creases to form around those beautiful eyes and they were hers again. Helen never scowled. One simply cannot afford to when one is the most beautiful woman in the world. Every frown added the possibly of more lines on that perfect face and so her twin only ever smiled. Once when she was feeling especially spiteful Clytemnestra had pointed out that one's face was more likely to get creased through smiling and that when Helen was nearing forty she would have more wrinkles than newly washed linen. Helen had fled in tears and Clytemnestra had felt a vague sense of triumph. She allowed herself a slight smile before remembering what had followed. Summoned before her father she had had to apologise to Helen before the whole court. She had never insulted Helen since but Helen had kept her smiles to a minimum, which she supposed was enough of a reward for the humiliation of the public apology.

A slight tug at her hair pulled her out of her daydreams.

"Sorry your highness," the slave arranging her hair apologised quickly. Clytemnestra dismissed her concerns and the slave continued to pin her long tresses into place. Tired of studying her own reflection the princess turned her attention to the slave.  _Which one is this?_  she wondered absently. All the slaves looked the same, rough brown skin and dark hair. There was nothing to mark one from the other; was the person tending her hair Erigone or Marea?

"Finished your highness," the slave announced and stepped away.

Slowly Clytemnestra raised her hands to intricacy-braided hair and smiled in satisfaction.

"Thank you Marea," she guessed hopefully. The slave beamed with pleasure at being recognised. "You look beautiful highness."

She didn't want to ask but the words escaped her anyway. "As beautiful as Helen?" she asked and looked up expectantly.

There was a long pause before Marea answered tentatively, "well I'm not s…"

Clytemnetra sighed.  _Oh course not._  "Don't trouble yourself." Nobody was as beautiful as Helen. Once more she reprimanded herself:  _I should stop asking_ , but even as the thought arose she knew she wouldn't. As a child a slave had told her that true beauty comes from within. So Clytemnestra waited as thousands upon thousands of people told Helen how beautiful she was, waited for someone to see her inner beauty.

"I haven't seen the Princess Helen up close," Marea was stammering, desperate to correct her mistake. "She may not be as beautiful as everyone says she is."

Clytemnestra glowered at her. "She is."

The poor girl was almost in tears, each word she spoke edged with a sob that threatened to break Clytemnestra's fragile control. "Just forget what I asked," she said and rose stiffly from the chair and stalked out of the room. "Everyone else does sooner or later."

It was the day of Helen's wedding to Menelaus and the palace was in uproar as Clytemnestra slipped almost unnoticed through the thronging crowds who had come to gape at the most beautiful woman in the world. She wanted to be alone and there was no where inside this Helen obsessed palace where she could truly be alone so she pushed her way through the bustling courtyard towards courtyards near the exercise yard. She was only delayed once and the man who she had almost knocked over forgot her as soon as she had passed and resumed his conversation with his neighbour.

"Menelaus is a lucky dog."

"Did you try and win her hand too then?"

"Yer. You?"

"Nah, I knew I wasn't rich enough with out coming down here so Tyndareus could humiliate me in person."

Clytemnestra turned back to scrutinise their faces. One of them, the poor one, was a complete stranger but the other seemed vaguely familiar.

"I'm sure I was in with a chance but my brother turned out to be richer than I ever remembered."

Ah and the mystery was solved, the unknown speaker was Agamemnon, Menelaus' brother. He was still speaking. "I'm here today to try my luck with the sister." Clytemnestra edged closer.

"Really?" his companion asked. "I didn't know she had a sister. What's her name?"

" _Two_  sisters," Clytemnestra hissed under her breath but neither man noticed.

"She's got two," Agamemnon replied to his friend's astonishment. "But the one I'm after is called Clytemnestra."

Behind them Clytemnestra held her breath as the conversation continued to play out. "Is she pretty?" asked the one who was not Agamemnon.  _Yes come on_.  _Is Helen's sister pretty?_

"I don't know," he replied to the others' disappointment. "She never comes out."

Never comes out?! Mighty Zeus give me strength! Never comes out without being over shadowed by Helen more like it.

"But if she's Helen's twin she can't be bad," Agamemnon continued oblivious to the seething presence behind him. The discussion continued for some while after that with Clytemnestra listening in until she had grown weary of Agamemnon's tedious conversation and left fuming.  _I will never marry that arrogant bore._

Nobody else stopped her although many times she heard gathered nobles discussing the possibility of marriage with Helen's illusive twin sister. Some of them made Agamemnon seem almost attractive in comparison; some of them didn't even know her name. As she neared the exercise yards the crowds had thinned out until she could see no sign of human activity at all. The courtyard here was one of the most beautiful in the palace grounds, it was here Clytemnestra came when she wanted to be alone. For a while she strolled along the garden path listening to the clash of sword on sword coming from the exercise yard. When she reached the centre of the garden she sunk slowly onto the little wooden bench underneath the honeysuckle. There all the anger, resentment and hurt dwelling deep inside her soul escaped her normally needle tight control and she let out a long cry of anguish and frustration. She screamed until she had no more strength left and then she collapsed onto the soft grass near the base of the tree and sobbed quietly until her brothers found her there.


	2. Gemini

She didn't need to speak; the same scene had played so many times before. She merely allowed herself to enjoy the comfort Castor's arms offered, sobbing gratefully into his tunic. Pollux had disappeared after her initial outburst but returned now carrying a package wrapped in leather. Gently Castor untangled himself from her embrace and stood up next to his twin, helping her to her feet. They stood just looking at her for a while.

"What?" she demanded angrily as they beamed at her.

"We got you a present," Castor informed her.

"Then why don't you give it to Helen, it's her wedding. I don't want it."

Their smiles widened infuriatingly. "I think you may when you see it." The leather bound thing, whatever it was, was thrust into her protesting hands. "Open it," Pollux urged his eyes bright. One of her delicately plucked eyebrows rose, "you know I don't think I will. I think I'll just keep it like this," the corner of her mouth twitched, "keep you in suspense."

Castor laughed and Pollux smiled indulgently. "You know you want to Nessy, just open it!"

She pretended to be offended. "You know I hate that name. Now I will leave it as it is forever in the back of my wardrobe."

A mischievous look passed between the two brothers and she moved backward knowing what was to coming. "One of my less used wardrobes," she managed before they pounced on her, tickling mercilessly.

"Do you surrender?"

"Never!" she giggled and retaliated. Pollux rolled away from this new onslaught and starting picking grass out of his hair watching in amusement as she tackled Castor eventually pinning him to the ground.

"Pol… help," he gasped, tears of mirth rolling down his face.

"Not likely," his twin grinned. "It'd take a braver man than I am to risk open war with our Nessy." Clytemnestra stuck her tongue out at him and Pollux returned it, she turned back to her other brother. "Now do  _you_  surrender?" She wiggled her fingers at him playfully.

Castor managed to raise his hands. "I surrender but only on the condition you open our thoughtful gift with all haste."

"Done."

She crawled over to the previously forgotten parcel, her gown picking up fresh grass stains, large green wounds across the delicate fabric. It was large and heavy in her hands as she pulled the cover off it and saw what lay beneath. She gasped and almost dropped it. The sword gleamed warmly in the sunshine as she reverently traced the line of its blade with one elegantly filed fingernail.

"Do you like it?" Castor asked softly.

"I think she does," Pollux answered when she did not.

"I don't know what to say. Thank you so much."

"That's good enough."

"Do you want to try it out?"

"Now?"

"Are you doing anything?"

The song of their swords rose and fell filling the deserted practice grounds. This was not the first time she had duelled with one or other of her brothers and every time she felt her spirit soar as that deadly song began and dwindle again as it faded from her world once more.

"Do you want to talk about it," Pollux asked as he brought his sword forward to crash against hers.

"No."

"It was Helen again wasn't it?"

"I said I didn't want to talk about it?" She parried another of his slashes and attacked viciously. "Why do we always have to talk while we fence?"

"I don't know." A blistering combination unleashed itself from his blade forcing her back. "Perhaps it's just my inquisitive nature."

"Castor doesn't force conversation when we duel."

"That's a lie and you know it. Nothing and nobody can get Cas to shut up if he's begun. What did she do this time?"

"Nothing," her sword swung into a crescent almost connecting with his unprotected left side. But Pollux jumped sideways just in time. "That was too close. Stop trying to kill me and tell me what's going on."

"It's not Helen." Clash. "I love her, I do."

"So do I. What's the problem then?" Clash. Duck. Clash. Block.

"That  _is_  the problem.  _Everybody_  loves Helen." She lowered her sword and relieved, her brother lowered his. "Even those who've never met her." She looked pleadingly at him; somehow he must have the answer. "What is it she has that I don't? Whenever I'm around her I can't help feeling I'm inadequate, that I'm less than her. Everyone around me is already thinking it that is if they even notice I'm there at all." The tears were falling thick and fast again and Pollux dropped his blade into the dust of the floor and enveloped her into a hug. "It's about time I started to think it too."

"Never let anybody tell you that Nessy," he whispered into her curls. "And never let yourself think it because it simply isn't true. I love you, Castor loves you and Helen however dense she may be at times adores you. Nobody thinks you're any less than perfect the way you are."

"Then why does it seem that way?"

"I don't know." He stroked her hair occasionally pulling out wisps of grass that still clung to it from their fight earlier. "Because life isn't fair."

"You don't need to tell me. Why is it you and Cas have the perfect relationship and Helen and I can barely say two civil words to each other?"

"I don't know but I know what I told you earlier was the truth. Don't ever give up Nessy."

She pulled back from him and smiled wetly, trying to put anger into her voice and failing completely. "You know I hate that."

"You have my apologies Clytemnestra," he bowed deeply, retrieved his sword from the ground and offered his arm to her. "Are you ready to face the world once more?"

She took his arm. "Thank you," she said simply.

"You're welcome. I'll always be there for you, as will Castor. If you need to talk or if you want to beat someone to a bloody pulp," she almost smiled through her tears, "we're here."

"Polydeuces! Are you two finally ready to go back?" Castor hollered from his place on the spectator's bench. "The fight got quite boring after the bit where Nessy almost killed you."

Clytemnestra snorted and Pollux pulled his arm away from her and moved away, walking with dignity swiftly away from them towards the palace until Castor caught up with him and jumped on him, arms encircling him in a bear hug. "Get of me you great brute!" she heard Pollux retort with mock anger. "Never! Nessy are you coming?" Castor yelled back towards her his arm around his brother's shoulder.

She looked down at the sword still clasped in her hand; there would always be two people in this world who loved her. Even if not as much as they loved each other, it was enough. She nodded and ran towards them ducking under their looped arms so she could walk back towards the palace between the two people in the world that meant more to her than the sunlight.


End file.
